(Creation) science marches on!

Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine has been in my reader for some time, and his advertisements, news articles, and answers to questions are both amusing and often satirically pointed. Today he notes a work in preparation called “A New Approach to Baraminology” by Dr. Orbin S. Thicke, Ph.D., and the Rev. Bob-Bob Lee, D.M., Fellows of the Institute for Noachian Studies. It promises great things:

One problem, however, has until now remained intractable: the question of which taxonomic rank properly represents the baramin, or original created kind, beyond which it is not permissible to search for common ancestors.

Read the rest there, and be sure to pre-order your copy for anticipated delivery in February 2043. It will make a lovely gift. For someone. Right? Right?

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61 Comments

Yikes. I’m going to have to agree with you on this one, Richard. These people think that because they can create fancy new words, we ought to listen to their theories.

Also, how is it that it’s ok for creationism to have “intractable” problems, but not for evolutionary synthesis? I think they’ve thrown their baby science out with the bathwater religion here, just a bit.

Hey, don’t forget about all the extra herbivores that will be required to keep the predators fed until such time as enough new herbivores can be born to prevent immediate extinction of the baramin by one act of predation! And of course the Ark had to contain enough fodder to keep all those herbivores fed for at least a year until new plants could grow on all that flooded land.

Yikes. I’m going to have to agree with you on this one, Richard. These people think that because they can create fancy new words, we ought to listen to their theories.

Also, how is it that it’s ok for creationism to have “intractable” problems, but not for evolutionary synthesis? I think they’ve thrown their baby science out with the bathwater religion here, just a bit.

Cheers,
NS

Wow, we’re really into quick-reaction denunciation here. Didn’t the wording of the original post signal to anyone that Dr. Boli’s page might be satire? Or perhaps the biographical information at his site crediting him with being born in 1783 and inventing the letter “M”? Or the promise that the paper would come out by 2043?

On a related note, when people do actual “baraminology” (rather than the satirical kind), I think we should be supportive. They are looking for evolutionary trees that connect groups of species. I say they should be encouraged to keep at it. Who knows, the number of different trees needed for ancestry of (say) all eukaryotes just might keep shrinking and shrinking. Down to one.

We believe the question has been approached from the wrong direction, with creation scientists attempting to answer it by analyzing current species’ common characteristics and working backward to the original baramin. …(snip)…

(so work backwards) Given the dimensions of the ark specified in the sixth chapter of Genesis, it then becomes a trifling mathematical exercise to determine approximately how many animals were housed on board the ark, each breeding pair of which, as one of the sources of all succeeding animal life, must correspond to a single baramin.

Translation:

“Well, the idea was supposed to be that there’s some unique dividing line we can use to figure out just what a “baramin” is… but that turns out to be too hard because, well, the data just doesn’t show any dividing line.”

“So instead, we’ll just start from the answer we need and work backwards from there”.

The results of this study will revolutionize the field of creation science, putting it for the first time on a comparable level with reflexology, astrology, psychology, and other sciences of undisputed certainty and utility.

Not this one I mean, but I keep getting Panda links that go to some bin or something, but link to my site? What?

NS

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you link to something that illustrates what you mean? It may be that off-topic comments were sent to the BW, but I don’t recall doing so with any of yours. Each PT contributor moderates his/her own comments threads, so you need to complain to whoever wrote the OP in which your comment was posted.

Assuming that you’re serious, I tried twice to get Dembski to answer how he would calculate confidence limits to his Explanatory Filter. The first time was face to face after the Spring 2002 AMNH ID debate. The second time was two years ago, after I received an unsolicited e-mail from him. Both times he refused to answer.

Man, someone should alert the creationists, They all believe in microevolution, or so they claim. Of course it would be interesting to see their definition of the term.

But seriously, why on earth does a well validated concept such as this qualify as a “bad idea”? Is the round earth a “bad idea”? Is plate tectonics a “bad idea”. Reality is what it is. You don’t like it, that’s too bad.

The gravity of this situation for the physics community is yet to be fully appreciated.

Those were the exact same words said by Professor Eleanor Legbower, assistant to the now deceased physicist, Doctor Bertram Waengsjoe Spangenhelm, right before Doctor Spangenhelm began his final experiment concerning the affects of macro-gravity has on baby grand pianos. Let’s just say that the whole project ended on a low note.

“How do new species arise? Darwin’s original idea, that new species arise gradually from the action of natural selection over time, is now seriously in doubt. In fact Darwin was disappointingly vague and inexplicit about the actual mechanics of speciation (despite the title of his magnum opus). The events which lead to the ‘creation’ of new species are still largely a puzzle. Is selection alone strong enough to bring about new, distinct sexually isolated species in the wild? Is this process necessarily a gradual one, or may new species arise quite abruptly? The results of thousands of experiments and observations from nature are ambiguous natural selection may be strong enough to create adaptations, but some recent experiments suggest that selection may actually be irrelevant in the origin of species. There is also a wrangle over the speed at which new species are formed-the latest results implying that this may be sudden rather than gradual.” (Leith, Brian [producer, Natural History Unit, BC, Bristol UK], “The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism,” Collins: London, 1982, pp.22-23) “

and

“Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!” (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume “Traite de Zoologie,” for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], “Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation,” [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.87).

You haven’t been paying attention to the current scientific literature. GOOGLE Richard Lenski, John Endler, Peter and Rosemary Grant for starters. But wait, I suppose you are just another delusional, intellectually-challenged Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone “driving by” here:

quoatmyner said:

“How do new species arise? Darwin’s original idea, that new species arise gradually from the action of natural selection over time, is now seriously in doubt. In fact Darwin was disappointingly vague and inexplicit about the actual mechanics of speciation (despite the title of his magnum opus). The events which lead to the ‘creation’ of new species are still largely a puzzle. Is selection alone strong enough to bring about new, distinct sexually isolated species in the wild? Is this process necessarily a gradual one, or may new species arise quite abruptly? The results of thousands of experiments and observations from nature are ambiguous natural selection may be strong enough to create adaptations, but some recent experiments suggest that selection may actually be irrelevant in the origin of species. There is also a wrangle over the speed at which new species are formed-the latest results implying that this may be sudden rather than gradual.” (Leith, Brian [producer, Natural History Unit, BC, Bristol UK], “The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism,” Collins: London, 1982, pp.22-23) “

and

“Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!” (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume “Traite de Zoologie,” for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], “Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation,” [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.87).

Well I am slowly investigating the possibility of using Dembski’s Explanatory Filter as a means of ascertaining whether Zefrem Cochrane’s warp drive is a potentially credible scientific and technological idea. But I’m not holding my breath that I will obtain anything useful from a Panglossian “artifact” like the Explanatory Filter!

Well I am slowly investigating the possibility of using Dembski’s Explanatory Filter as a means of ascertaining whether Zefrem Cochrane’s warp drive is a potentially credible scientific and technological idea. But I’m not holding my breath that I will obtain anything useful from a Panglossian “artifact” like the Explanatory Filter!

Have anything intelligent to say? Or are you just a troll. Posting irrelevancies and junk doesn’t mean squat.

quoatmyner said:

“How do new species arise? Darwin’s original idea, that new species arise gradually from the action of natural selection over time, is now seriously in doubt. In fact Darwin was disappointingly vague and inexplicit about the actual mechanics of speciation (despite the title of his magnum opus). The events which lead to the ‘creation’ of new species are still largely a puzzle. Is selection alone strong enough to bring about new, distinct sexually isolated species in the wild? Is this process necessarily a gradual one, or may new species arise quite abruptly? The results of thousands of experiments and observations from nature are ambiguous natural selection may be strong enough to create adaptations, but some recent experiments suggest that selection may actually be irrelevant in the origin of species. There is also a wrangle over the speed at which new species are formed-the latest results implying that this may be sudden rather than gradual.” (Leith, Brian [producer, Natural History Unit, BC, Bristol UK], “The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism,” Collins: London, 1982, pp.22-23) “

and

“Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!” (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume “Traite de Zoologie,” for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], “Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation,” [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.87).

I don’t know where you are getting this stuff (but I can guess). Nothing in the first paragraph is at all a problem for evolution and the second paragraph is just plain wrong. Do try to do better next time. You are not going to convince anyone of anything this way.

As John suggests, you might want to try some references from the primary literature and something less than twenty seven and thirty six years old, respectively. We have actually learned quite a bit about speciation in the last thirty years. I can provide references, but that never seems to work out.

“The results of thousands of experiments and observations from nature are ambiguous natural selection may be strong enough to create adaptations, but some recent experiments suggest that selection may actually be irrelevant in the origin of species.”

So just where are the referenced experiments Quoatmyner, that substantiate your arguments?

Mike Elzinga said:

“F = GmM/r2 for values of r for which F is in the Micro-gravity range.

Since there is no such thing as Micro-gravity changing into Macro-gravity, this means that once r becomes sufficiently small, there is no more gravity.

So there is Micro-gravity far away, but when you get closer to a gravitating body, gravity stops evolving any further.”